Donald Trump: Man of Destiny

How the idea of the Zeitgeist infects American culture

Substack writer N. S. Lyons recently published an article about Trump as he might be perceived as a “world-spirit.” The concept of a world-spirit comes from the writings about history of German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770 - 1831). The world-spirit manifests itself in great men, who for better or worse, move history along its destined path. Examples might include Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. Hegel would include Napoleon. The “great man” theory of history has gone by the wayside in favor of an analysis of events in terms of socioeconomic factors, technology, and even diseases, so it is rare among historians to focus on these individuals. But there have indisputably been great men over the last few centuries after Napoleon who have changed history, again for better or worse. Most Americans would nominate a good man such as Lincoln. And it is irresistible to name great evil men such as Hitler and Mao.

But whether or not one believes in the great man theory, historians would undoubtably agree that men such as Napoleon are not examples of some sort of mystical “world-spirit.” However, there are people, generally not historians, who think that God or Providence are working out their plans through great men, usually men who they think are good (although there is also the evil antichrist, who is the fulfillment of prophesy).

According to a recent survey 65% of Republicans believe that Trump’s life was spared from his attempted assassination by God or Providence. But why say both? I think it’s because Providence can be divine, or it can come from nature.

It is the latter which interests me. I believe that many if not most Americans believe in impersonal yet spiritual forces. Examples would include karma, luck, fate, even Murphy’s Law. These are forms of Providence without God.

As I see it, the overarching impersonal yet spiritual phenomenon is the Zeitgeist. The German word literally means “time (as in era) spirit.” It is like a sense of life feeling or aura that permeates and guides life in a certain period. Examples would include the Age of Reason, the Romantic Era, the conformist 1950s, and the rebellious 1960s. Our current obsession with generations, although it has some basis in demographic fact, reflects a belief in the Zeitgeist.

Our belief in the Zeitgeist is a kind of pop-Hegelianism. It doesn’t usually include the idea of an inexorable march of history to an age when all the theses and antitheses are resolved in the ultimate synthesis (a view also embraced in Marxism). It is usually more static, just a characteristic of the Now or a simple reaction to what came before, although the left’s commonly expressed idea of being on “the right side of history” is more seriously Hegelian.

I believe that the concept of Zeitgeist in its quasi-mystical aspect is completely spurious. Yes, Baby Boomer were the first generation to grow up with TV. Yes, the hippies did drugs. But these were not mystical developments but largely the workings-out of philosophical trends. Freud + Marx by way of Marcuse = the New Left. There’s nothing spiritual in the strong sense about it at all.

But perhaps more important is that many people believe in something like the Zeitgeist. Remember the generations thing again. Given his dominance in world affairs today, some might feel that we are living in the Age of Trump.

In 2014, I wrote a long essay about the Zeitgeist as it pertains to concept of being cool. Donald Trump was not even on the radar then, and I would not think the concept applied to him with his braying, hot style, which is the opposite of that of a smart, cool politician like JFK. I was awakened from my dogmatic slumbers when I read Lyons’ claim that “the vibe of the right is now . . . ‘cooler’ than the left.”

So no, Trump is not cool like Morgan Freeman is cool, but he is riding the Zeitgeist as cool people do. Let’s look at how this is the case, adapting my earlier analysis to its different situation. Trump embodies several varieties of cool that I identified.

1. Trump in the eyes of some of his followers is the Great Man of history. Some Christians seem to believe he was sent by God to save the world, or at least America. You could call this religious Hegelianism, and indeed it is more personally spiritual than what I am calling the Zeitgeist. Its fanatic form is QAnon. Some non-religious, however, share the Great Man appraisal of him.

2. Trump strives to reclaim the glory of the past Zeitgeist, when America was “great.” This is not too dissimilar to Mussolini’s attempt to recapture the glories of ancient Rome. (By the way, the left’s likening of Trump to Hitler is absurd, but he is rather similar to Il Duce.)

3. Similar is what I called “vanguard cool,” Trump promises bold new policies such as frightening NATO or stemming the flood of undocumented immigrants using any means necessary. He promises new ideas that would shake up the world just as new fashions from Paris shake up the way (some) people dress.

4. Finally, Trump embodies something like “outsider cool.” Good examples of outsiders would be Miles Davis playing with his back to the audience and Marlon Brando as the leader of a motorcycle club. Trump is the ultimate political outsider because he is not a professional politician, and he promised to “drain the swamp,” thereby putting the insiders on notice.

America faces a horrendous choice this year: we can vote for Trump, who is a loose cannon, or we can vote for Biden, who is non compos mentis. [edit: now they can vote for the mediocrity Kamela Harris) I don’t believe RFK Jr. has a real chance. Even if the Democrats replace Biden with someone who can speak in complete sentences, they are likely to be unappealing and unappetizing. In any case, after the assassination attempt, Trump seemed almost certain to win, because his now iconic demeanor after the shooting made him look (in the eyes of one writer) “heroic” and therefore irresistibly charismatic.

The problem is, you can’t be “heroic” unless you’re an actually a hero, which Trump is not. He might have been courageous (or foolhardy, take your pick), but he wasn’t heroic. Probably he just knew that he had a fantastic moment for a photo op.

So, what do we make of Trump and America’s misguided belief in the Zeitgeist? I’m sad to say that we might not be able to do much of anything. Trump is a drug, like the heroin that some cool people indulge in (or at least did in the 1960s when heroin was chic; now heroin users are just pitiful), and we’re not likely to give it up and go back to our boring lives. Harris is boring. Almost all politicians are at least somewhat boring, unless they’re fanatics. Then they’re frightening.

I think our only hope is to attack the idea of the Zeitgeist head-on, because that is the underlying rot in our culture. I came up with some ideas in my earlier essay, which I will offer at a later time. If you have any ideas, please share them in the comments.